This is, BY FAR, the best nuclear war scenario film ever put out. Why? Because it's based on the REAL THING! This video represents the US government's best guess as to how nuclear war would unfold if waged in the late 1950's. Its not just a dramatization, but an actual declassified training video! Just imagine planes and missiles loaded with bombs in the multimegaton range, detonating over the world! Each wave of bombers from either side likely carried over a thousand megatons of explosive yield. Every US and Soviet ICBM likely carried warheads in the three to twenty megaton range. As you see in the first half of the attack, Europe is totally destroyed along with Japan. Indeed, we are informed of, what would have likely been, multi-megaton bombs dropping on Tokyo, Osaka, and Yokohama! Bombs of similar yield likely fell all over Europe and the Warsaw pact nations. As we later see in the report on the Soviet attack against US, over a third of the American population is either killed or seriously injured. That is even with the US being naturally protected by two oceans. All of the major industrial areas within the US are totally destroyed. In the late 1950's, most of the Soviet and American thermonuclear weapons were dirty designs with about 50% of their yield coming from fast fissioning of big uranium 238 tampers. This, along with the targeting of both sides nuclear power facilities would have led to a huge amount of real-estate being badly contaminated by fallout. It's ironic that, by the end of this film, the US is still pushing for "surrender" by the Russians several days after pretty much anything resembling civilization as been annihilated. Again, I rate this as the best of all nuclear war training videos currently declassified.

This film is clearly about the use of SAC resources to retaliate for a Soviet strike on the West.

What I find strange about it is that there is no mention made of SAC in the film. Instead there is reference to LRAA, which is actually a Soviet term.

Further, the officers' names are fictional. The roles are in fact being played by actors. This is a dramatisation, not a documentary.

Also the alert is sent out in the incorrect way. A subsequent documentary, also available here, called "SAC Command Post" shows that alerts require multiple officers to be present.

Another curious feature of this film is that it shows weapons that did not make it into inventory, namely Bull Goose and Rascal. The Thor rocket is a prototype as it has the wrong nose-cone for a warhead and it does look like the same launch from different angles. Production Thors were deployed in the UK because they lacked the range otherwise. As well as this it is quite clear that the B-58 is a test plane and not a combat production version as the colour scheme is wrong. There is no mention of the B-36, which left service in 1959. This film was clearly produced years before this date.

So who was the intended audience? With so many features that are apparently incorrect, was it designed to reassure congressmen. Or was it designed to be leaked to the Soviets to show them what would happen? There does not look like there is anything there to justify the film being too closely guarded. The scenario shown depicts major damage to the USA, but the USSR is obliterated to the point where there is no method for the Kremlin to officially surrender.

Apparently this was to only government film to discuss war with the USSR. It is more upbeat than the British 'Hole in the Ground', but not if you are a Russian.

This is a matter-of-fact film with no ideology or rhetoric. So it is interesting as an objective examination of the early Cold War. Its accuracy, however, may be open to debate.

This is easily the scariest movie I've ever seen. All those so-called "horror" movies fade in comparison.
It is hard to believe how close the Cold War got to getting really, really, Hot.